that seems like a pretty good PAO thing. For cards, that seems pretty hard though... how can you keep track of club/spade/heart/diamond for 52 different cards? I really like normal PAO for cards. I end up getting 3 per loci, which is a fairly good amount. 8 cards in a loci seems awfully crammed like you may mix up images.
Maybe I wasn't too clear,I only keep track of 8 at a time. It is a bit more thought intensive than single letter PAO, but it is stores more. A-M are the reds and N-Z are the blacks,Club/Spade Heart/Diamond act like binary I use temperary audio loop to keep the 8 digit binaryish string in my head until I convert it to be the last image. I also don't need to add new images to my letter pair system since 2^8=256.
This system did take alot of effort to make but not as much as the millenium PAO or the Ben System would. The audioloop is very weak and a short term tool that really only helps me translate the last image more quickly. I have mostly worked on finishing and practacing this over the last few weeks so I am still getting more fluent in the system.
Maybe I wasn't too clear,I only keep track of 8 at a time. It is a bit more thought intensive than single letter PAO, but it is stores more. A-M are the reds and N-Z are the blacks,Club/Spade Heart/Diamond act like binary I use temperary audio loop to keep the 8 digit binaryish string in my head until I convert it to be the last image. I also don't need to add new images to my letter pair system since 2^8=256.
This system did take alot of effort to make but not as much as the millenium PAO or the Ben System would. The audioloop is very weak and a short term tool that really only helps me translate the last image more quickly. I have mostly worked on finishing and practacing this over the last few weeks so I am still getting more fluent in the system.
I just came up with one that works surprisingly well while trying to learn blindfold solving. You just use multiple sentences of this for both cycles:
(first colors)s who eat (second colors)s get (third colors)s for christmas. Just use this cycle over and over until you finish with the edges. Then use this cycle for the corners. It is easy to memorize and you can track how many of each there are without counting so you can find parity. Just note flipped edges and twisted corners. If you use positions instead of colors, it also works. If you don't have a multiple of three, just think (second to last colors) eat (last colors). If there is one more than a multiple of three, say that they get (second to last colors) and (last colors) for christmas. This is very easy to memorize.
I just came up with one that works surprisingly well while trying to learn blindfold solving. You just use multiple sentences of this for both cycles:
(first colors)s who eat (second colors)s get (third colors)s for christmas. Just use this cycle over and over until you finish with the edges. Then use this cycle for the corners. It is easy to memorize and you can track how many of each there are without counting so you can find parity. Just note flipped edges and twisted corners. If you use positions instead of colors, it also works. If you don't have a multiple of three, just think (second to last colors) eat (last colors). If there is one more than a multiple of three, say that they get (second to last colors) and (last colors) for christmas. This is very easy to memorize.
I have just recently started using a Letterpair PAO-ish type system where I have 26 groups of 26 characters that each have An accesory and action that I link to have 10 letters in a loci.for example, Ash ketchum in piccolo's cape uses Avada Kedavra on a wartortle wearing Gandalf's hat and holding his stick would fit in a loci.
I want to talk about this 26 almost random lists of 26 not particularly ordered people/characters (from books, movies, TV, manga) system. I thought it would work since people say that associations to pegs only matter when you start and that you need to focus on using strong images.
I obviously misinterpreted this advice.:fp
DO NOT MAKE A RANDOM LIST OF 676 CHARACTERS AND TRY TO USE IT FOR MNEMONICS!!!
I was spending every night drilling the list and tapping the stickers to memorize the list for over a month and spent further months practicing it. The whole time I was convincing myself that I would get a better result than letter pairs in the long run. This is probably the BIGGEST cubing mistake I have ever made. Don't make associations were there are none. The craziest thing is that this system actually worked until I stopped Bld for a while to learn some speedcubing algs. It took about 3 weeks without practice for most of the associations to disappear and the rest were very difficult. Furthermore, I found this out right before a competition and did terribly (4x4: DNF DNS DNS, 3x3: DNF DNF DNF).
If this stops anyone else from making such a list, I will consider this post a success because
CE RH EB JF US
should never mean "Ash Ketchum in piccolo's cape uses Avada Kedavra on a Wartortle wearing Gandalf's hat"
I thought this would solve similar letter confusion and rare letter pair difficulty, but I created a whole host of problems instead.
I was stupid and tried to brute force mnemonics. Don't be like I was. I am back to using phonetic letter pair associations and I am much better off.
I tried something fun yesterday, and I considered it a failure for what I was trying to achieve but I also found it very motivating to improve my memory method.
My girlfriend had a friend from college visiting town this weekend and the three of us spent a lot of time together just hanging out. At one point we went to WonderWorks in Orlando, which is sort of a science museum/learning center geared towards kids and adults. One of the games was a giant version of the memory game Simon. It had 5 buttons, each showing a different color. At one point Katie and her friend were playing a two player game elsewhere so I decided to give the Simon game a try using my memory images and journeys.
The record for the Simon game (which the game displays at all times) was 25, and I figured that would be 13 images in order to beat and set a new record of 26. 13 images would fit into 4 full journey locations each containing 3 images of 2 letters, plus another letter pair image in the start of a fifth location. This is less information to remember than a 4x4x4 cube, so I figured it would be a cinch to beat the record of 25 without much effort.
I was very wrong. I made it to 15 in two tries, and after that we had to leave because I was really there to hang out with Katie and her friend, not to play memory games
I found that my problem was not with the encoding. I could encode as quickly as the machine showed me new colors. Basically I took the first letter of every color and set it as a letter from my letter pairs. (O)range, (B)lue, etc. If I got two of the same color in a row, so (B)lue (B)lue then I would just picture an exaggeratedly large version of my single letter image for B which is Orlando (B)loom. So the memory method was sound for the most part, albeit a little different than what I am used to.
I found that the problem came during recall. The machine did not allow you much time to pause when playing back the sequence after it had shown you a new color added onto your previous sequence. I sometimes would find that I would have a memory recall delay for an image, and as I tried to use my normal techniques to decode what was there the machine would tell me that I timed out and lost. This happened to me twice, and is how I stopped both of my attempts. As I said before, the furthest I made it to was 15 colors in a sequence. This is 7 images and a single letter image after that, which only takes 2.5 locations, about as much to remember as a 3x3x3 cube.
This was a huge wake-up call for me, as it showed me that under intense pressure my failing is not encoding, but decoding. Does anyone have any ideas on how to improve your ability to decode when memorizing quickly, to avoid the recall delays? I know that is a HUGE question, and is the kind of thing we are all searching for. I am open to ideas, though, if anyone has any.
My 4bld started as a very formulaic memo, with letters made into sentences, placed into locations in rooms. My coding and decoding times improved when I decided not to be so stuck in my set ways of memorising things. After all, some cycles are so easy to remember visually that coding into roman rooms is very inefficient. I stuck to memorising edges 4 pieces at a time into each location, but I started to occasionally memo 4 pieces visually instead of with letters, when the targets seemed easy to do so. My centres were always fairly flexible in terms of number of targets to memo in each locations, but again I tended to start using more visual and sometimes numbers as well (following A=1 B=2 etc). The numbers were particularly useful when I got 3 targets (or more) in a row that would clearly make a nice number sequence (e.g. constant difference). For example, BGLQ isn't so pretty to memorise with letters, but for me it was obvious from their position on the cube (before even thinking of the letters) that they would make a simple number sequence 2-7-12-17.
This memo (that I called 'freestyle memo') was very easy for me to recall as I still had set locations in each room, but some locations I would have remembered that I memorised the 4 pieces visually, or 4 pieces with numbers. And if I had memorised e.g. 4 centres with numbers, 5 centres visually and 4 edges visually, it was very easy to remember what the memo was because there weren't many cases of it. This also reduced the number of letters/sentences I had used and therefore those were also easier to recall.
I encourage 'fast' people to experiment with a more freestyle type of memo because that accounts for much of what got me from a 2 minute memo to 1:20
Thanks for your reply Daniel. I guess I just need to be more flexible and try out freestyle memo (for cubing). I imagine this would have helped me during the Simon game also.
One question: When memorizing part of a cycle visually how do you keep track of whether you used an even or odd number of pieces in the cycle? Do you just count them and move back into your formulaic memo appropriately?
For example, so I start to memorize my memo in formulaic way as: (A NU EF * * *) where * * * represents that I memorized 3 pieces visually. If that cycle continued on and did not complete yet then I would have to start my next letter as a single letter image so that my cycles after the visual stuff still executed as one cycle per image.
Do you track this during encoding? Or do you not worry about it during encoding, and wait till the solving phase where you would just deal with doing cycles that span 2 letter pair images after the point where you memorized the visual cycle?
To complete the example my final memo might be:
(A NU EF ** *R ST XC) etc. Again an * represents a piece memorized visually.
Visual edge memo I'd always do 4 edges visually, as my memo is always broken down into 4s.
Centres I would always do an even number of targets visually - tended to be 4 again (unless 3/5 pieces finished the cycle). Therefore I would never encounter cycles that span 2 images
p.s. sorry for the slow reply - didn't see this until now!
I have not seen anyone mention this idea, but I am guessing it has come up.
I have not solved the cube blindfolded yet, but I am very close, and I use Pochmann's method for both edges and corners.
I match a number to a face of the cube. Yellow: 1 Blue: 2 Red:3 Green: 4 Orange: 5 White:6
I then remember a series of numbers that correspond to each edge. So, for example, 15, 26, 41 would be Yellow and Orange, Blue and White, Green and Yellow pieces.
I use 3 digit numbers for corners, reading in a clockwise fashion. eg 265 would be Blue, White and Orange. I would know blue is facing up.
This method involves memorising 20 different numbers in a row (if I am correct), does anyone believe this to be a useful method? Is it a big waste of my time? Is it difficult to execute while blindfolded?
Thanks in advance, I'm pretty new to cubing, 28.5 seconds is my PB XD
I have not seen anyone mention this idea, but I am guessing it has come up.
I have not solved the cube blindfolded yet, but I am very close, and I use Pochmann's method for both edges and corners.
I match a number to a face of the cube. Yellow: 1 Blue: 2 Red:3 Green: 4 Orange: 5 White:6
I then remember a series of numbers that correspond to each edge. So, for example, 15, 26, 41 would be Yellow and Orange, Blue and White, Green and Yellow pieces.
I use 3 digit numbers for corners, reading in a clockwise fashion. eg 265 would be Blue, White and Orange. I would know blue is facing up.
This method involves memorising 20 different numbers in a row (if I am correct), does anyone believe this to be a useful method? Is it a big waste of my time? Is it difficult to execute while blindfolded?
Thanks in advance, I'm pretty new to cubing, 28.5 seconds is my PB XD
I have not seen anyone mention this idea, but I am guessing it has come up.
I have not solved the cube blindfolded yet, but I am very close, and I use Pochmann's method for both edges and corners.
I match a number to a face of the cube. Yellow: 1 Blue: 2 Red:3 Green: 4 Orange: 5 White:6
I then remember a series of numbers that correspond to each edge. So, for example, 15, 26, 41 would be Yellow and Orange, Blue and White, Green and Yellow pieces.
I use 3 digit numbers for corners, reading in a clockwise fashion. eg 265 would be Blue, White and Orange. I would know blue is facing up.
This method involves memorising 20 different numbers in a row (if I am correct), does anyone believe this to be a useful method? Is it a big waste of my time? Is it difficult to execute while blindfolded?
Thanks in advance, I'm pretty new to cubing, 28.5 seconds is my PB XD
Using letters uses the exact same principle with 27263552818236x more efficiency, numbers are more abstract and harder to comprehend for most people for memorization. Letters can be used to make words. Plus other stuff
If you do intend to stick with this method (don't though) you don't need to memorise 3 digit numbers for corners. You could just memo clockwise around a corner every time which means you don't have to memo the 3rd sticker.
I have been struggling with coming up with a memory method...then I got to thinking about binary. It seems like that might be useful for memorizing the cube...maybe. Any ideas on how I might go about it?
Edit: Or maybe hexadecimal? It seems like it might work but I can figure out corners....
I have been struggling with coming up with a memory method...then I got to thinking about binary. It seems like that might be useful for memorizing the cube...maybe. Any ideas on how I might go about it?
Edit: Or maybe hexadecimal? It seems like it might work but I can figure out corners....
Hint: It is, but for a specific method and for a specific part of that method.
Binary or even hexadecimal is a great way to memorize which edges are flipped in 3OP.
Don't take this the wrong way, but your question is showing that you are really approaching this from an unusual perspective. There are many different memory methods, and they all have strengths and weaknesses. Basically you will learn a memory method based on what it is you need to memorize. Not only that, but usually there are memory methods that generally work better for what you need to memorize than other memory methods.
For example I use the MAJOR system to remember phone numbers, or what page I am on in a book. The MAJOR system is built around being able to remember strings of numbers which is why this works well. I would, however, probably not use the MAJOR system to memorize a cube because using numbers is generally not as good of a method as using letters. This is due to the "memorization space" of a cube. There are 10 digits if you use a number based method. However, there are 12 edges on a 3x3x3 cube. Already numbers is an inferior method since the memorization space of the cube (12 3x3x3 edges) is larger than the memorization space of a digits based memory method.
I would suggest not to come up with a memory method you like or that you find interesting, and then try to apply that memory method to your cubing. Instead, try to think of what exactly you need to memorize when you memorize a cube. Then either come up with, or learn about, a memory method that helps you remember that type of information.
I for one am willing to help you get on the right track for this if you really are interested. However, you have to start asking the right questions first
Happy learning!
P.S. Seriously, please keep asking more questions (and no that is not sarcasm)
For example I use the MAJOR system to remember phone numbers, or what page I am on in a book. The MAJOR system is built around being able to remember strings of numbers which is why this works well. I would, however, probably not use the MAJOR system to memorize a cube because using numbers is generally not as good of a method as using letters. This is due to the "memorization space" of a cube. There are 10 digits if you use a number based method. However, there are 12 edges on a 3x3x3 cube. Already numbers is an inferior method since the memorization space of the cube (12 3x3x3 edges) is larger than the memorization space of a digits based memory method.
I would agree with using numbers for corners since the memorization space of the corners (8 pieces) can be accounted for by the memorization space of using a memory method with the 10 digits.
Also, if you haven't learned about the MAJOR system yet, and you use numbers for corners, then I think you will LOVE this method!
Hint: It is, but for a specific method and for a specific part of that method.
Binary or even hexadecimal is a great way to memorize which edges are flipped in 3OP.
Don't take this the wrong way, but your question is showing that you are really approaching this from an unusual perspective. There are many different memory methods, and they all have strengths and weaknesses. Basically you will learn a memory method based on what it is you need to memorize. Not only that, but usually there are memory methods that generally work better for what you need to memorize than other memory methods.
For example I use the MAJOR system to remember phone numbers, or what page I am on in a book. The MAJOR system is built around being able to remember strings of numbers which is why this works well. I would, however, probably not use the MAJOR system to memorize a cube because using numbers is generally not as good of a method as using letters. This is due to the "memorization space" of a cube. There are 10 digits if you use a number based method. However, there are 12 edges on a 3x3x3 cube. Already numbers is an inferior method since the memorization space of the cube (12 3x3x3 edges) is larger than the memorization space of a digits based memory method.
I would suggest not to come up with a memory method you like or that you find interesting, and then try to apply that memory method to your cubing. Instead, try to think of what exactly you need to memorize when you memorize a cube. Then either come up with, or learn about, a memory method that helps you remember that type of information.
I for one am willing to help you get on the right track for this if you really are interested. However, you have to start asking the right questions first
Happy learning!
P.S. Seriously, please keep asking more questions (and no that is not sarcasm)
Thanks for the advice!! I was simply thinking hexidecimal would work because it could store more numbers with less to memorize. Honestly, I need to work on my method more before I start working on memo.
Off topic (kind of), but is OP edges with T and J perms significantly slower than M2?
Yes. In OP, you do 1 or 2-move setups and 12-14-move PLLs for inserting one edge. In M2, you do 3-4-move setups and a 1-move insertion. M2 requires nearly half as many turns; advanced M2 uses even less turns.
